


Week Two - Mind

by FriendlyCybird



Series: Forduary 2019 [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Meditation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyCybird/pseuds/FriendlyCybird
Summary: Sometimes, it's nice to get back to basics.





	Week Two - Mind

Winter term of Stanford Pines’ freshman year at Backupsmore, his class selection left him one credit hour shy of the absolute maximum units allowed per term, even with special instructor approval. He’d anticipated from the course catalog meeting the full maximum, but they’d downsized a biochemistry lab from five credit hours to four, and Ford’s sense of completionism wouldn’t let the matter rest.

“Yer already takin more classes than any other one student, Stanford.” Fiddleford tried to reason with him. “More than most two, even. Stop stressin so hard before ya pop a blood vessel.” When that failed to soothe him, Fiddleford turned back to the course catalog, and handed it to Ford, who’d been through it front-to-back countless times without ever really seeing the page it was open to. 

“These are all physical education, Fiddleford.” he said dismissively. In the following years, Ford actually took most of the courses on that page. Everything from Tai Chi to Weight Training. At this stage of his life, however, Ford had little awareness of his body or fitness needs.

“It’ll getcha that last credit hour, won’t it?” Fiddleford argued, and Ford reluctantly gave the page a second look. Most of the classes listed wouldn’t fit into his course schedule anyway, so dismissing them based on lack of interest was secondary. There was one, however, that fit neatly into Stanford’s already hectic schedule. Even benefitted it by placing him a shorter distance from the cafeteria by breakfast time. He scoffed at the subject matter, but at least it wasn’t physical education. 

Meditation. 

In many ways, a much older Stanford Pines reflected, he owed that class his life. Sure, it had only taught him the most basic techniques. He’d explored the subject considerably more in-depth independently and it was those advanced techniques that had proven life saving. Still, it had been a path down a road that had salvaged his sanity when he had little else to cling to. To say nothing of the times slowing his heart rate had been imperative. 

Sometimes though, it was nice to get back to the basics. 

The gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed slowly through his nose was naturally rhythmic enough to lull him once he turned his attention to it. His mind put up a token resistance to the relaxation, thoughts working themselves into a small mailstrom. He breathed in slowly through his nose, held the breath a beat, then out through his mouth. Then once again as he expanded into a simple visualization. 

The first time he’d been guided through this exercise, he’d been instructed to visualize running water. A creek, or even a river. At that point, as an eighteen year old from New Jersey who’d never seen running water anywhere but from a faucet, he hadn’t been able to. Not one to shirk any classroom duties, however fatuous he found it, Stanford had approached his professor after that exercise and informed her of his difficulty visualizing outside of his own experiences. 

“So use the ocean then.” the professor had responded. He’d looked at her, caught off guard. She’d been a no-nonsense woman. Short and slight with wavy salt-and-pepper hair and hard, browned, leathery skin. Given the subject matter he’d expected her to dress...well...a certain way. Instead, he’d never seen her without her dark blue blazer and black slacks. At the dumbfounded look he must have given her she looked away and sighed heavily. He was almost certain she was rolling her eyes where he couldn’t see them. “The visualization isn’t the goal. The details don’t matter. Use what works for you. A stream flows, the tide rolls. The point isn’t to see something specific, the point is to let go of your thoughts. To let them be carried off so you can stop being carried off by them.” 

That had stayed with him, and for the next four years he would imagine setting his thoughts on an incoming ocean wave, then watch it be pulled back out to sea. Then he moved to Gravity Falls and went on his first hike through the woods. He came across a stream and sat beside it to eat his lunch and suddenly the image of the beach was forever supplanted. He'd gone back to that spot in his mind more times than he could count over the years. Sit beside that stream and gently place his thoughts, little bubbles that turned first from the desaturated sunset autumnal red-orange of subdued heat to a pure gold in his days when that color meant wisdom, to a corrupted, swirling mass of grey as he worked through his guilt, to the blue color of only the hottest, most devastating fire as he settled on and put a plan of vengeance into motion. His thoughts had been that blue for decades, so it was almost a surprise to realize the color seemed to have been sucked out of them. Each bubble that floated to the top of his mind now was a dark, gentle tan. Devoid of the desperation that had tinged every point of his life before. 

He visualized that realization as a bubble of its own, then set it on the stream to gently float away. His imagined eyes followed it though, and just before it floated out of view Ford was hit by an overwhelming wave of relief. His next breath came shakey, so he pulled back from the visualization and returned to his breath. In. Hold. Out. Repeat. Until it stabilized and the swell of emotion began to recede. 

Ford stayed with his breathing for a moment. Came back to his body and spread awareness to the way his weight rested on the floor. The slight ache in his knees from having crossed his legs. The pull of gravity encouraging him to slouch and the strength of his spine's resistance. 

Then, done for now and fully at peace, Ford opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this fic was like pulling teeth. I'm so grateful I got it done sometime that vaguely resembles the second week of Forduary.


End file.
